Glad to see you back training again! Sorry to hear things have been so rough for a while, but good to hear that you're not killing yourself for work any longer (one of my personal missions, to not let business rule my life like it has in the past). Get back in the gym when you can, and the strength will be back soon enough!

"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

VeganEssentials wrote:Glad to see you back training again! Sorry to hear things have been so rough for a while, but good to hear that you're not killing yourself for work any longer (one of my personal missions, to not let business rule my life like it has in the past). Get back in the gym when you can, and the strength will be back soon enough!

Thanks man! It feels great to be back, and it looks like I'm finally going to have a training partner starting next week. I'm not letting anything get in my way.

Energy levels were super low today. Nervous system was crapping out early. Probably due to the fact that I feel a slight cold coming on and I ate like crap today. Now I remember why I used to eat a ton of brown rice and oatmeal everyday. Point taken.

No more powerlifting style squats, these were Olympic style, ATG. It had been a long time since I had done that many reps of squats. My legs felt like jelly by the end, it was awesome. Worked out pretty early in the day today.

My new training partner works 9A-5P. I work 6A-2P. This gives me a 3 hour window from the time I get home from work until the time I meet up with him. I've decided I'm going to do my cardio work in that time. Today I got home from work and did hill sprints. The hill I use is probably about 50 yards (rough estimate) from top to bottom and pretty steep. All of the local kids sled there, if that paints a reasonable picture. I did 20 sprints, using the time it takes to walk back down as my rest.

Taught my training partner how to deadlift today. It's a bit distracting having to teach someone an exercise from nothing and critiquing his form between every one of my sets, but I'm glad I can help him out with it. After lifting we enjoyed some post work out burritos from Chipotle

It's depressing looking back in my training journal when I was benching 245x7, and how much my strength has dropped since then. But now I will only progress, and next spring I will be even bigger and stronger than I was last spring. Form felt really good tonight. I got a nice pause at the bottom of every rep on the bench. When I get my strength back up I would like to start doing some competitions. That is all for now.

Did everything super strict, got really deep on the squats and good mornings. Things felt really great tonight. I meant to take some video on my phone but completely forgot. My training partner is getting his deadlift for down pretty well, and I taught him to squat tonight; we're gonna get his form on point next week. I'm slowly turning him to the dark side (lifting for strength with size as an added bonus, rather than the other way around). After the work out we met up with some friends at a nearby Chipotle (aside: I feel bad for people who don't have one of these in their areas) for a buddy's birthday. I celebrated with two packed burritos.